a. and sb. [ad. L. adjacentem pr. pple. of adjacē-re to lie near; f. ad to + jacē-re to lie. Cf. Fr. adjacent, 16th c. in Littré.]
A. adj.
1. Lying near or close (to); adjoining; contiguous, bordering. (Not necessarily touching, though this is by no means precluded.) Adjacent angles, the angles which one straight line makes with another upon which it stands. Also fig. in Logic of nearness in resemblance.
c. 1430. Lydg., Bochas, V. xiii. (1554), 132 a. There wer two cuntries therto adiacent.
1509. Barclay, Ship of Fooles (1570), 104. [He] warred on other realmes adiacent.
1606. Shaks., Ant. & Cl., II. ii. 218. A strange inuisible perfume hits the sense of the adiacent Wharfes.
1663. Gerbier, Counsel, 6. The Houses adjacent, and those which are opposite.
1745. De Foe, Eng. Tradesm., XI. xxxiv. 72. Those parts of Essex, Surrey, and Kent, which lie adjacent to London.
1789–96. J. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 302. The adjacent inhabitants had assembled in arms.
1827. Hutton, Course of Math., I. 317. The sum of the two adjacent angles DAC and DAB is equal to two right angles.
1846. Mill, Logic, III. xxi. § 4 (1868), II. 108. With a reasonable degree of extension to adjacent cases.
1860. Tyndall, Glaciers, I. § 2. 20. Furnishing ourselves with provisions at the adjacent inn.
† B. sb. That which is adjacent, or lies next to anything; an adjoining part; a neighbor. Obs.
1610. Healey, St. Aug., City of God, 721. The LXX rather expressed the adjacents, then the place it selfe.
1635. Shelford, Disc., 220 (T.). He hath no adjacent, no equal, no corrival.
1725. De Foe, Voy. round World (1840), 224. The whole place and its adjacents.
